The 2024 Xu Lang Peach Blossom Festival: A unique cultural space in early spring

With the theme “Shimmering peach blossom colors – Shining far away”, Xu Lang Peach Blossom Festival will take place from January 26 to March 9, 2024 (from December 16, Year of the Cat to January 29, Year of the Dragon). Currently, preparations for the festival are being urgently coordinated and prepared by all levels, sectors and relevant units.

The jury of the contest of beautiful peach blossom gardens and beautiful peach blossom trees in the Year of the Dragon judge the peach blossom garden in Loc Binh district

Xu Lang Peach Blossom Festival is one of the annual, typical and outstanding cultural, sports and tourism events associated with Party and Spring celebration activities of the province. This is the 6th time the festival has been held, with a variety of activities bringing new experiences. The festival promises to be an attractive event that attracts a large number of people to participate.

Mr. Phan Van Hoa, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said: Implementing Plan No. 203/KH-UBND dated October 20, 2023 of the Provincial People’s Committee on organizing the Xu Lang Peach Blossom Festival and activities to celebrate the Party and celebrate the Year of the Dragon 2024, The Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has issued documents guiding member units to develop content to participate in festival activities. At the same time, proactively coordinate with relevant agencies and units to develop detailed plans to organize activities.

Accordingly, the 2024 Xu Lang Peach Blossom Festival with the theme “Shining peach blossom color – shining far away” will take place from January 26 to March 9, 2024 (from December 16, Year of the Cat to January 29, Year of the Dragon). The festival is not only a colorful space for visitors to see flowers, but also has many unique activities such as: peach blossom fair and tour to experience the peach  blossom colors of Xu Lang; Visit and experience the space promoting peach blossoms and the 2024 Xu Lang Spring Flower Road. Within the framework of the festival, there will also be a contest for beautiful peach blossom gardens and beautiful peach blossom trees in the 2024 Lunar New Year; professional art exchange program with Pingxiang County (Guangxi, China) to celebrate the Ky Cung – Ta Phu Festival; spring mountain running race; Journey to discover the heritage of Lang Son Geopark…

Coordinating units are preparing for the peach blossom space at Chi Lang Park, Lang Son city

The highlight of the 2024 Xu Lang Peach Blossom Festival is the opening ceremony taking place at 8:00 p.m. on February 1, 2024, at Hung Vuong Street, Chi Lang Ward, Lang Son City with a special art performance with the theme ” Shimmering peach blossom color – Shining far away”. To prepare for the musical performances on the opening night to take place smoothly, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism signed a contract with Ham Nghi Joint Stock Company (Hanoi) and directed the Provincial Culture and Arts Center to coordinate the program.

To date, the coordinating unit has completed the script for the festival’s opening program. Accordingly, the art performances in the program are methodically and elaborately staged with 3 main parts: The first part has the theme “Legend of a flower” about spring and the meaning of peach blossoms in Xu Lang; The second part with the theme “Flavours of Lang Son” speaks about the beauty of the land and people of Lang Son; The third part with the theme “Lang Son my homeland, Vietnam my country” talks about Lang Son in the period of innovation, development and integration… The performance brings together hundreds of artists and actors from inside and outside the province, with the presence of famous artists such as: Ho Quynh Huong, Hoang Hai, ISSAC and Rappers such as Phuc Bo, RamC… With careful preparation, the opening program promises to be a meaningful and colorful gift for the audience, while contributing to the success of this year’s festival.

To widely promote and introduce the activities taking place in the Xu Lang Peach Blossom Festival in 2024, propaganda work is promoted on information and communication media. In the past 2 months, the Provincial Tourism Promotion Center has carried out propaganda and promotion of the festival on tourism websites and fanpages.

At the same time, the Culture, Sports and Tourism sector has deployed banners and flags to propagate the peach blossom festival along with large propaganda panels on main roads, border gate areas, and areas adjacent to the provinces; On January 10, the Festival Organizing Committee issued an announcement about the organization of the Xu Lang Peach Blossom Festival and activities to celebrate the Party and the Year of the Dragon in 2024.

Mr. Tran Lenh Truong, Head of the City’s Culture and Information Division, said: The City is assigned to undertake the following tasks: designing and decorating spring flower paths; Organizing Quang Lac Peach Blossom Fair associated with peach blossom garden tourist attractions… We have advised the City People’s Committee to develop an implementation plan and assign specific tasks to the People’s Committees of wards, communes and related units to ensure the implementation of tasks on schedule.

It is known that this is the first year Lang Son city undertakes the task of “building” a peach blossom space in the Chi Lang Park area. To create this space, Lang Son city will display nearly 200 beautiful peach blossom trees of diverse types. On this occasion, the city will officially operate a commercial tram experience around the city and the Spring Flower Street area, to best serve the sightseeing needs of people and tourists.

Along with designing the spring flower street, the City People’s Committee also directed the People’s Committee of Quang Lac commune to organize a peach blossom fair. Mr. Pham Dinh Duy, Party Secretary, Chairman of Quang Lac Commune People’s Committee said: Quang Lac is the area that grows the most peach blossom trees in the city with an area of nearly 50 hectares. From January 26 to February 9, 2024, in Quang Trung 1 village, the commune organized a Peach Blossom Fair with the theme “Pink to welcome spring” with the participation of nearly 100 gardeners and more than 1,000 peach blossom trees.

Along with the ongoing activities, the contest of beautiful peach blossom gardens and beautiful peach blossom trees in 2024 Lunar New Year; The 2024 Xu Lang Peach Blossom painting contest has been launched in districts and city and is being implemented by interested units. Accordingly, from the beginning of December 2023, owners of 14 peach blossom gardens in 9 districts and city participating in the competition have focused on fertilizing, cutting roots, covering roots, circling roots, and stimulating growth for peach blossom trees. Mrs. Hoang Thi Hoa, Cau Lam area, Loc Binh town said: My family’s peach blossom garden has an area of about 8,500 square meters with more than 1,200 peach blossom trees of 4 types: Bold Peach Blossom, Light Peach Blossom, White Peach Blossom, That Thon Peach Blossom; including about 100 trees that are 5 years old. To represent the district in this year’s beautiful peach garden contest, my family is very excited. Not only do we focus on taking care of the trees to bloom evenly and beautifully, and clear areas in the garden, we also build small landscapes such as swings and amusement parks so that people can visit and admire the peach blossoms and take beautiful pictures with the peach blossom trees.

In addition to the above activities, during more than a month of the Peach Blossom Festival, many tourist routes and exhibitions will be designed to attract and develop local tourism. For example, the thematic exhibition is called “Listening to the story of Ky Cung river”. Mr. Nong Duc Kien, Director of the Provincial Museum, said: The exhibition will focus on portraying the beauty of the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of ethnic groups living along the Ky Cung riverbank. In it, we will arrange a number of typical cultural spaces of ethnic groups for tourists to take photos and check-in with many unique models such as: wall houses, stilt houses, brocade roads, grass hills… Up to now, we have completed the work of building outlines, scripts, and selecting exhibits.

With the successes of previous festival seasons, we believe that the 2024 Peach Blossom Festival will continue to contribute to honoring unique values and beautiful images of life, people and traditional cultural values of ethnic groups of Xu Lang, exploit available tourism potentials, effectively promote the value of scenic heritage as well as continue to promote and introduce typical tourism products of Lang Son province to domestic and international tourists.